The cultural space in which Evangelically Departed connects with readers and writers is one that is often marked by the presence of what has come to be known as deconstruction. The term itself comes from academic writing and thinking around post-modernism, but used in the context of religion it has come to mean a kind of taking apart of ways of thinking and believing. There is much that can be good and hopeful and liberating about deconstruction. Many people have experienced harm or trauma in religious communities of high control and experience freedom in an honest assessment of their religious history.
It is also the case, even in some fairly extreme examples, that people who are deconstructing can remember some good things from within the system that they now largely reject.
I was thinking of this as I read a recent New Yorker article about conversation. The article points out that we used to have more occasions to speak with people we do not know. Can you remember that? If you wanted to purchase a book, you pretty much had to go to a bookstore and at some point in the process of buying the book you would have to interact with another human being. This was the same for music. Many of us have fond memories of a particular record or cd shop that was a significant part of our lives. For me and many other people, it was A&B Sound in Vancouver. When I wanted to buy a record (then later a cd) I would have to go to the store, often with a friend. At the store, there would likely be some interaction with strangers, maybe even before the purchase, and then to make the purchase I would have to interact with another person. Now I can buy books and music without ever entering into even cursory conversation with another human being.
There are numerous implications of this kind of change. For a start, we can tend to become more and more polarized as we are forced less and less to talk to someone we don’t know. As we draw closer and closer to groups defined by affinity of perspective, and opinion, we less frequently interact, even in small talk, with people who see things very differently than we do.
This is where my positive memory of one blessing of my evangelical experience comes to mind. There are many people that I knew, some who I still know, who I would never have known apart from the fact that we were part of the same church. This cross-perspective, cross-demographic relationship is actually more likely in smaller churches. In large churches there is a programmatic pull towards people of similar age and interest. In smaller churches there is more regular interaction with people who are very different. I often think of one person, who I came to know for decades, with whom I shared little in common politically, culturally, and in terms of age and perspective. We shared a faith, but our actual understanding of what faith entailed was very different. This woman was decades older than me and yet, through our church connection, we knew each other and became friends through some of the most formative and meaningful years and events in our lives. I suppose what I am saying is that I kind of miss regularly being around people with whom I mostly disagree.
We used to have to talk, and we did talk. At times we argued, but mostly we respected each other enough to allow space for difference. Don’t get me wrong, this woman believed some crazy and hateful stuff. To be fair, she might well warn you against what she saw as my permissive, liberal views. I can still picture her rolling her eyes at me. Yet, week after week, we found ourselves in conversation.
I think that we need conversation like that.
There is a word in the New Yorker article that you may not have heard before. It is the word “autotelic.” It is an adjective describing something as existing for an end within itself. So, an autotelic conversation would not demand that anything other than the conversation itself be accomplished. I think of that kind of thing when I think of my friendship with this person I otherwise would not have known. Christian ideas around mission and purpose would, perhaps, say that our interaction existed to show the forbearance and love that ought to be a mark of the church.
This way of seeing things would turn our conversation into a means to a larger end. I suppose that can be true, but that is not really what I miss. What I miss, and what I remember with fondness, is simply knowing this person who saw many things in about the opposite way than I did.
For those who remain part of the evangelical church or part of other similar communities, I hope that you, too, can know the gift of conversation with such familiar strangers. For those who find themselves mostly in affinity groupings, may you be blessed to interact with, and even come to know, people who are very different than you, people with almost entirely different opinions. I am not even thinking here about knowing such people in order to solve some cultural problem. I simply mean that it such conversation is a gift, an end in itself, autotelic. There is a tendency, both on the right and on the left, to demand that those around us speak and act and talk like us. This is a loss. We are made smaller for this. In all the years that we knew each other I did not come to share most of her views and she did not come to share most of mine. Perhaps this is a positive. We talked just because our lives overlapped. I am grateful that they did.